Abstract
The energy consumption of buildings in developed countries comprises more than one quarter of total energy use in their countries. In the EU and the US, buildings consume more energy than industry or transport . As a result, energy efficiency in buildings has become a global research topic for energy policy. Motivated by the time-consuming disadvantages of EnergyPlus, a commonly used energy simulation software, this study proposes a ``simplified simulation process” based on EnergyPlus to estimate energy consumption for buildings, both residential and commercial. The proposed simplified simulation process is based on revising an existing building model, named the “benchmark model,” in terms of some key input parameters, including building size, material and structure, schedule, weather profile window-wall ratio, and shading length. The proposed revised model can be easily implemented in a graphics software named SketchUp. In this research, we illustrate how the proposed simplified simulation process can be easily used to explore the effects of building energy consumption as functions of different eaves size. Results show that eave size is a significant factor for moderate-size buildings and that the most cost-effective eave length is 0.25 meter.